Technical Field
This disclosure relates to precision metrology, and more particularly to inspection programs for coordinate measuring machines.
Description of the Related Art
Certain metrology systems including coordinate measurement machines (CMMs) can be utilized to obtain measurements of inspected workpieces and may be controlled at least in part by workpiece feature inspection operations that have been programmed on a computer. One exemplary prior art CMM is described in U.S. Pat. No. 8,438,746 (the '746 patent), which is hereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. As described in the '746 patent, the CMM includes a probe for measuring a workpiece, a movement mechanism for moving the probe, and a controller for controlling the movement mechanism.
A CMM which includes a surface scanning probe is described in U.S. Pat. No. 7,652,275 (the '275 patent), which is hereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. After a scan, a three dimensional profile of the workpiece is provided. The workpiece may be measured by a mechanical contact probe scanning along the workpiece surface, or by an optical probe which scans a workpiece without physical contact. Optical probes may be of a type that may use points of light for detecting surface points (such as triangulation probes), or a type that uses a video camera, wherein the coordinates of geometric elements of the workpiece are determined via image processing software. A “combined” CMM that uses both optical and mechanical measuring is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,908,951, which is hereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
In all of the above described CMMs, operations may be programmed for inspecting workpiece features. The workpiece features and certain CMM components may be represented in computer aided design (CAD) files. The programmed operations for inspecting the workpiece features may generally be reviewed to see which workpiece features are being inspected and in what order, and may also be edited by adding, removing or otherwise altering particular program element operations that are associated with particular workpiece features. However, in existing CMM programming systems, such reviewing and editing operations are not always easy for a user to perform or to understand, and it may also be difficult for a user to program CAD models for certain types of workpiece features and/or CMM components. For example, it may be difficult for a user to track where and how such programmed operations fit within an overall inspection plan, different windows may be provided with different types of information about the programmed operations and/or workpiece features and CMM components, and it may difficult to understand the various effects that certain types of edits may produce relative to altering the efficiency or effectiveness for the inspection of a particular workpiece feature or for the overall inspection plan. A need exists for a system and/or user interface features which simplify the program creation and editing processes, and which allow for the understanding of the effects of various types of edits in an immediate and intuitive manner during inspection program creation, review and/or editing for a CMM.